On August 7, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed a challenge to the federal government’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), filed by an Islamic charity that has been determined to have ties to al-Qaeda. A federal district court had allowed the case to go forward and ultimately entered a $2.6 million judgment against the government, in favor of two individuals who claimed they were illegally subjected to electronic surveillance. The Ninth Circuit reversed on the grounds that the federal government enjoyed sovereign immunity from such suits. The decision was a victory for WLF, which filed a brief in support of the federal government. WLF argued that the Executive Branch had convincingly demonstrated that allowing the case to go forward would create unacceptable risks that highly classified information would be disclosed and that the disclosure would cause serious damage to national security.